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One Lap of the Web: falling rocks, falling prices, and a Ford Frontenac?

September 3, 2013

A couple antique Subarus have gotten lost inside a dealership, and have now been dusted off. Photo by eBay user: ilist4u

-- If this isn't the automotive video of the week, then we don't know what is. A car in Taiwan just barely avoids being crushed by a gigantic boulder, whose water and mud bow wave shoves the car a few feet before the boulder even lands anywhere near the car. Watch the top of the hill at the very start of the video. Now you know those Watch for Falling Rocks road signs aren't kidding.

-- Hooniverse has the scoop on a couple of vintage Subarus, or what passes for vintage when we're talking about Subarus. A Subaru dealer in Salt Lake City was planning on reorganizing the showroom, and just happened to discover a 1983 Leone GL-10 Coupe and a 1986 Subaru GL 4WD Hatchback that have fallen through the cracks, both with about 50,000 miles on the odometers, but looking rather new. The no-reserve auctions seem to have been stopped by the seller, so watch for a relist with a reserve price set.

-- We're all fans of the Canadian-market 1960 Ford Frontenac (right?), so we were excited to see this one-year-only Canadian model on Craigslist. But one BringaTrailer commenter has noticed that there may be something the seller is not mentioning from a previous listing attempt on eBay: that this might just be a Ford Falcon wearing a Frontenac grille and badges. If true, this would change everything. Including the Earth's tilt.

-- The Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG is barely out (is it even actually out?) and the S65 AMG is already being spotted filming car commercials. Well, seems like the old 2014 S63 AMG is obsolete already. Tune in next week for spy shots of the upcoming S71 AMG.

-- Here's a car we don't see in the Motors section of the Electric Bays often: a GAZ 21 Volga. There are only about a dozen examples of this GAZ in the U.S., and we even saw one of them at the 2011 Greenwich Concours d'Elegance months before it was flooded in Hurricane Sandy. This particular example is claimed to be from 1959, and is claimed to be a one-owner car, probably a unique claim as far as stateside GAZ 21s go, considering they left production in 1970. Putting aside the fact that the fascia on this car is from the 1962 facelift, why is a one-owner GAZ 21 being sold with a $50,000 asking price in California? The best ones top out at $25,000, and that's not counting the insanely rare V8 or automatic transmission versions of the GAZ 21 Volga. In any case, watch for a relist next week with a few digits lopped off the starting price.